Saturday, November 13, 2004
Transcription ante - a way to make money from audioblogging, internet radio, and podcasting
I've been writing up a business plan for a new VOIP service that I've been calling "Transconf". I'm discouraged at the state of the market it's in, but encouraged by Richard Branson's philosophy - "The time to get into a business is when it's abysmally run by someone else".I typed on today, trying to finish the first draft, exploring business models, relatively undaunted by the number of partners I'd have to interface with, the costs of advancing the states of the technologies I wanted to use, the backend costs, the margins, and the quality control issues... I ran the spreadsheet: I needed about 650k to get to beta, and over 12m to get to cash flow positive. Although that latter figure didn't include realistic margins for actual revenue I got kind of discouraged, and went outside for a nicorette. It's hard to think, 24 hours into trying to quit smoking....
An idea dropped out of the sky. It wouldn't take much to develop, and would end up profitable for everybody. I'd drop everything and work on it if I didn't have so much invested in the core ideas of transconf... I still might get to work on this....
as I'm way behind on podcasts, with radio recordings, and on my favorite audio site (IT Conversations)...
Audio Transcription Antes
Fact: Transcription services have a cost of about $180.00 per hour of recording, even with computer assistance. As Doug Kay points out, a basic transcription can be had for much less in India.
Fact: Much audio content on the net is not being transcribed, and much of that is not worth being transcribed
Fact: Text information has more value than purely voice information (it's more easily linked to, googled for, reused, etc -)
Fact: If the cost of transcription could be scaled to meet demand, everybody would enjoy metcalfe's law effects in supply and demand for moving voice to text.
The idea is basically - have a service that wraps around any given audio file
that allows writers and readers to ante in on having a transcription of that recording available.
Add a "Transcribe This" button to any given audio feed, and it's rating system. Clicking on that button gives an ebay-like status on how close it is financially to getting transcribed, and allows readers to "ante up" to get it closer to being transcribed. "Transcribe this" could also be built into mp3 players and the like...
When the ante reaches the minimum required to get the recording transcribed, the audio gets sent off to the transcription service, it gets transcribed, the transcription gets emailed to the audio owners and the people that ante'd up (conveying a first mover advantage), and a few days later the transcription can be made public...
... thus lowering the costs of the audio -> text conversion for all...
does that work for anyone? Press? Public? Podcasters? Politicians?
¶ 4:05 PM
Comments:
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Yep, the money and trust issues always raise their heads.
I figure most the time, the authors of the conversation, or the host of the event, would ante up to get the transcription done, if it were made easy enough.
but I realized it could be expanded to just about any voice performance, such as stuff in the national archives, and if the idea was more ubiquitous in any field, (sales?) metcalfe's would kick in faster. Trust gets easier the smaller your trusted circle...
I'm still working on the right word - ante doesn't work - "pledge"? I'd want to build in a reputation based system for both transcriptionist and pledger...
>FYI, I've had many IT Conversations transcribed in India. The cost, if you hunt and negoatiate, is about $60/hr of audio. Proofreading and correcting are still >required.
As for India, as you said, there's still editing to be done afterwards.
I have some hope that better quality can be had by using Indian resources mixed with American, and american expats - and still the costs come out at over 80/hr. I like this, actually, it means that there is room to innovate out from under these costs, and that there's an existing market used to paying them - and paying for the extremes of local reference (180 is one of the lower quotes I got from a firm in Boston) I've been quoted as low as 90/hr of transcription on simple stuff here in SC, with varying results - the quality control issue remains no matter which country I get the work from. (to improve turnaround I am thinking Alaska/Hi, Australia, India, Estonia, Ireland, and South Carolina)
Thank you so much for itconversations - and such a fast reply - I've never had so much good radio to choose from.
--
Mike
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I figure most the time, the authors of the conversation, or the host of the event, would ante up to get the transcription done, if it were made easy enough.
but I realized it could be expanded to just about any voice performance, such as stuff in the national archives, and if the idea was more ubiquitous in any field, (sales?) metcalfe's would kick in faster. Trust gets easier the smaller your trusted circle...
I'm still working on the right word - ante doesn't work - "pledge"? I'd want to build in a reputation based system for both transcriptionist and pledger...
>FYI, I've had many IT Conversations transcribed in India. The cost, if you hunt and negoatiate, is about $60/hr of audio. Proofreading and correcting are still >required.
As for India, as you said, there's still editing to be done afterwards.
I have some hope that better quality can be had by using Indian resources mixed with American, and american expats - and still the costs come out at over 80/hr. I like this, actually, it means that there is room to innovate out from under these costs, and that there's an existing market used to paying them - and paying for the extremes of local reference (180 is one of the lower quotes I got from a firm in Boston) I've been quoted as low as 90/hr of transcription on simple stuff here in SC, with varying results - the quality control issue remains no matter which country I get the work from. (to improve turnaround I am thinking Alaska/Hi, Australia, India, Estonia, Ireland, and South Carolina)
Thank you so much for itconversations - and such a fast reply - I've never had so much good radio to choose from.
--
Mike
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